Telling the Truth
by AmyCoolz
Summary: Ron lies about stealing Hermione's Potions essay. She gets angry and confides in Harry for help. He gives it. Ron, in the end, tells Hermione the truth. YAY! Happy ending! lol Written as a request for starthehedgecat! RWHG


**A/N: Alright, I've decided to stray away from my Harry/Draco relationships for a story; well, there will be mentions of it in here, but that's it. This was requested of me from my bestest (D) friend in the whole world, starthehedgecat! If you haven't already read any of her stuff, you totally should, though it's all Sonic the Hedgehog. Except for one story she's working on that's an Inyuasha (spelling?) which is good so far.**

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"Hermione, I don't understand why you won't just let me borrow your essay for Professor Snape. I mean, it's due _tomorrow_! I don't even have _one sentence_ written!"

"That's your own fault, Ronald Weasley. You knew well enough that this essay was due."

"What's up, guys?" Harry walked into the Gryffindor common room to see his two best friends feuding over a piece of parchment on the table in the corner.

"Hey, Harry. _Hermione_-" he shot her a death glare. "-won't let me copy her Potions essay."

"Gee, that sucks… I finished my essay yesterday…" He flopped down in his favorite chair next to the fire. Ron looked like a goldfish as he was trying to find something to say. Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Draco helped me with it."

"Oh." Ron looked down at his shoes, defeated. Then he lifted his head back up to look pleadingly at Hermione. "_Pleeeeeeaaaaaase?!_"

"No!" she said firmly, and then packed her stuff in her bag. "I'm going to bed. Good night, Harry-" she looked pointedly at Ron. "-Ronald."

"Night, 'Mione!" Harry called from the couch, propping his feet up on the table in front of him. He sighed and placed his hands behind his head.

"Harry!" Ron breathed, rushing over to where Harry was relaxing. "You've _got_ to let me see your essay!"

"Sorry, mate. Draco's got it. He said that you might try to get it from me, and he couldn't risk it for me _or_ him. Bloody prat's too smart for his own good," he said, closing his eyes lightly. "You'll think of something."

"Yeah…" Ron sighed and looked up the stairs in the direction of the boys' dormitories. "I think I'm gonna go to bed, Har."

Harry opened one eye to regard his friend. "Okay. Night, Ron."

"Night." He trekked up the stairs to the boys' dormitories, passing a lurking Parvati Patil just outside of the girls' dormitory.

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"Harry… Harry! Harry, wake up!" Harry was shaken awake the next morning and he opened his green eyes to see brown ones staring back down at him. He jumped and tried to cover himself with his sheets as Hermione sat down next to him on his bed. "Sorry to wake you so early, but my essay is gone!"

"Maybe Ron took it?" It was more of a statement than a question, but Hermione answered it anyway.

"No." She shook her head. "I already asked him and he said he hadn't touched it. I don't know what could have happened to it!" She broke down into hysterics and started shaking violently. "Now I'm going to fail the NEWT level Potions class!"

"Hermione, calm down. You're not going to fail; you're one of the brightest witches I've ever had the pleasure to meet. Now, where and when was the last place you saw it?"

She stopped shaking enough to tell him. "Last night while I was getting ready to go to bed; I placed it in my bag and hung it on my bedpost as I always do. But when I woke up this morning, my whole bag was gone!"

"Hm… Who could've stolen your bag…?" Harry thought for a moment before coming to the only logical conclusion. "Maybe one of the girls stole it?"

Hermione shook her head vehemently. "Padma and Parvati had already finished theirs; and I don't think Lavender would've stolen it… I just don't know what to do!"

"Well, then… There's only one reasonable explanation: Ron took it."

"But boys aren't even allowed up into the Gryffindor girls' dorms, you know that."

"No, but girls are."

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"Ron, I want you to tell me the truth; did you or did you not steal my Potions essay and my bag from me?"

"I'm telling you the truth, Hermione; I haven't touched your bag _or_ your essay." Ron said through a mouthful of sausage.

All of a sudden, Parvati came into the Great Hall holding a gray bag in her hand. She walked up to Hermione and she shrieked. "My bag! Where did you find it?"

"It was in the chair in the corner of the common room. Didn't you see it?"

"No, I didn't. Thanks!"

"No problem." With that, Parvati took the seat next to her sister at the table.

"Well, Ron, it looks like I owe you an apology. I must not have taken it up to the dorm last night."

"But Hermione, you did-"

"Not now, Harry. I'm trying to right my wrongs."

Harry shrugged and went back to having a flirtatious staring contest with Draco across the Hall.

"Apology accepted, Hermione. I hope that next time you won't pin anything on me again."

"It was only because you wouldn't stop bothering me about it last night, I thought that perhaps you had taken it from me."

"It's alright."

"Hey, sorry to burst your bubble, guys, but it's time for class to start." Harry was standing with Draco's arm around his waist, waiting for them to join them to go to class; everyone had already left the Great Hall, leaving the quartet behind. Draco leaned in and mumbled something in Harry's ear, making them both laugh.

"Okay, coming."

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"Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, if I could see you two up here now." Snape was not looking pleased; he had two pieces of parchment in his hand. Ron gulped as he got out of his seat and Hermione was wide-eyed. "Did you honestly think that I wouldn't notice that you copied these essays, Mr. Weasley? And Miss Granger, to allow it puts you at fault, also. I have no choice but to give you both zeroes and failing marks for today as well. You may sit down."

But neither of them made their way back to their seats. Hermione turned to Ron, livid. "Ronald Weasley! How _dare_ you think that you can get away with lying to me about not having my bag! All to have copied my essay! I swear, if we weren't in a classroom right now, I would hex you so badly, you wouldn't be able to walk for the rest of the month! And to believe I actually _liked_ you!"

Everyone in the class stopped to watch this outburst of anger from the young witch; Draco actually dropped his knife, narrowly missing Harry's fingers as it stuck into the cutting board on the table.

"Enough of this now!" Snape yelled, standing and wrenching the fuming witch away from a petrified Ron. "Both of you will return to your seats and remain silent the rest of the class, or so help me Merlin I will sentence both of you to detentions with me tonight in the dungeons."

Ron regrettably went back to his seat and sat down; everyone was staring as Hermione walked back to her seat and huffed as she plumped down next to Ron.

"Uh… Hermione…?"

"Don't speak to me, Ronald."

"But-"

"I said don't talk to me!"

"Detention, Miss Granger. Meet Mr. Potter here at eight o'clock tonight."

"But I didn't _do_ anything!" Harry countered, slamming his knife down onto the table.

"Detention, Mr. Potter. Meet here at eight o'clock tonight." (1)

Harry grumbled angrily as he and Draco continued to cut the Mandrake roots for that day's potion.

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"I can't believe you actually landed a detention, Hermione." Harry said, knocking on the door to Snape's classroom. He opened the door, not waiting for an answer, and let Hermione in before him.

"Tonight you will both be scrubbing the cauldrons from today's lessons; no magic. You have one hour. Begin." Snape walked out of the door, leaving in his wake, none other than Draco Malfoy.

"Does he not know we're seeing each other?"

"Hon, nobody knows we're seeing each other, remember?"

"Right…"

"Now get cleaning! I want those cauldrons _spotless_ by eight forty-five!"

"But Snape gave us an hour!"

"I'm not Snape." Draco gave a malicious grin as Harry grabbed a bucket and sponge from the wall.

"You can be worse than him sometimes, you know that?"

"Boys!" Hermione prompted, and both stopped their bickering to look at her. "Harry, let's just get this done so we can get out of here…"

"Okay, but if you want to talk, Hermione, I'm here for you."

"…Actually, there is something that I've wanted to get off of my chest for a while now…"

"Go on." Harry moved on from his first cauldron to the next one, making sure to get the grimy edges.

"Well, I've liked Ron for ages now, possibly when I first met him on the train-" Draco audibly gagged at this, but she ignored him and continued. "-But today he just made me so angry! I don't know what to do, Harry." A tear fell down her cheek and he abandoned his cauldron and sponge to give her a hug.

"Mr. Potter!"

"Shut up, Draco! Can't you see this is a sensitive moment?!"

"It's alright, Harry." Hermione pulled back from her best friend and continued to clean her cauldron in silence. Harry went back to his, but every once in a while he would hear a sob coming from Hermione's direction.

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"Ron, Hermione is pretty angry at you."

"Yeah, I know… I don't know what to do… I wanted to tell her that I was sorry and that I liked her, but-"

"Wait, what?" Harry asked, pausing in the buttering of his toast to stare at his best friend of six years.

"I wanted to tell her that I liked her…"

Harry dropped his toast on his plate and gathered Ron up in his arms, laughing. "That's great!"

"Uh… Harry? What's great?"

"The fact that you like Hermione! She told me last night that she liked you…" He let Ron go to look into his eyes seriously. "But she's still really angry at you… It's going to be hard for her to forgive you."

"S-She likes me?" Harry nodded his head vigorously. "That's great news, Harry! Oh, but how will I tell her? She won't even talk to me!"

"Leave everything to me."

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"Hermione, I just wanted to say that I was sorry… I really like you." Ron shook his head, stopping his pacing in front of the mirror in the boys' dormitory. "No, no. That's not right at all." He turned to face his reflection and asked himself, "How will I tell her?"

"Just tell her how you feel, deary." The mirror replied.

"You're right. I just need to come out with it."

"Of course, deary."

He left the dormitory, taking the stairs down to the common room, where he found it was empty, save for Hermione seated on the couch in front of the fire. He cleared his throat and she looked up; her face, which was tear-stained, hardened when she saw him. "What do you want?" She turned back around to the fire, hands in her lap.

He walked the rest of the way down to sit next to her on the couch. He turned until he was facing her, but she turned so that she couldn't see him. "Hermione… I just wanted to say that I was sorry for stealing your essay… And I'm sorry for lying to you about after I said I hadn't taken it." She visibly loosened a bit, so he continued. "It was wrong and I shouldn't have done it… But I was on the verge of failing Snape's class!"

He could tell that this was the wrong thing to say as she turned around viciously in her seat, her hair smacking him in the face. "Well you should have thought about that before you took the class! You didn't have to take the NEWT level Potions class, you know!"

"Yeah, I know… But I wanted to…" He looked down at his hands, which were resting in his lap. He twiddled his fingers together absentmindedly.

"Why?" She demanded.

He took a deep breath and looked up at her, tears in his eyes. "Because you were taking it and I wanted to be closer to you…"

"Why?" Her voice was a tone softer this time, not so demanding.

"Because… Because…" He took another deep breath. _Easy, Ron… Easy…_ "Because I like you, Hermione."

Her eyes glistened with fresh tears. "Really?"

He nodded and she threw her arms around his neck. "I like you, too, Ron!"

He pulled back to look at her, and then brought his lips to hers. He slowly moved them, and then brought his tongue out to graze her bottom lip; she opened her mouth to let him in. They pulled apart after a while and gazed into each others eyes. Hermione was trying to find a hint of guiltiness or deceit in his, but could only find love.

"Are you telling the truth?"

"I'm telling the truth, Hermione. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… I'm pretty sure I love you." She smiled and kissed him again.

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**A/N: This was corny and written really fast. Like, super fast. It was around 8:15 PM when I started and now it's 9:08 PM. This is the longest one shot I have written in this amount of time… It actually helped me get some ideas out of my head so new ones could come in for my other stories. YAY!**

**Anyway, Star, I hope you liked it! And anyone else who read it who liked it, it would be appreciated if you could review! Thanks in advance!**

**Amycoolz**

**(1) - **Snape doesn't even _need_ a reason to give Harry detention! YAY Snape! lol


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